Sociologists have been reporting for years now about extended adolescence, a decades old trend where young people refuse to grow up and take on the responsibilities of adulthood. We’ve been seeing it in our culture since the ’90s with television shows like Friends and movies like Singles and Reality Bites.
But these benign depictions of a “slacker generation” are far from reality.
In a recent Breakpoint commentary, Chuck Colson talked about how this new reality has affected manhood.
Sad to say, if we look around, we see far too many young men who do little besides play video games and hang out with their friends. They are soaked in music and media that convince them that manhood is best achieved by seducing as many women as possible.
And sadly, many have no interest in the responsibilities of marriage and supporting a family.
One of the reasons for this, of course, is the continuing break-down of the family itself. So many young men are growing up without a dad — without a male role model. I can’t tell you how many young men I’ve met in prison who never knew their fathers. So to find male leadership, they turn to the gangs. It’s tragic.
Have Americans forgotten how to raise boys into men? Do boys even know what it means to be a man?
Colson continues by quoting Bill Bennett’s new book, The Book of Man: Readings on the Path to Manhood: “There is no simple instruction manual or formula on how to be a man, but there is experience and wisdom to be consulted.”
Colson ends by exhorting uncles and grandfathers to get involved with the young men in their life to give them their “experience and wisdom.”
Here at Prison Fellowship, we have opportunities to get involved with some of the men Colson referenced in his article. Please consider if God would want to use your experience and wisdom in the life of a prisoner.